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A comment on TSMC looks to double down on U.S. chip factories as talks in Europe falter. Parent comment

Re:TSMC looks to double down on U.S. chip factories as talks... by Laforet on Saturday May 15, 2021 @04:06AM (#27163370)
Politically it would be ideal to keep everything in Taiwan as this greatly increases the stakes for a potential war.

However there is a pressing shortage of electricity in Taiwan. Just yesterday there had been a major blackout as one of the coal fired power stations suddenly went off the grid. I'm sure TSMC has been given priority supply but they are cutting it extremely close. Taiwan is just not a good place to have more fabs right now.

The shortage is unlikely to get better in the long term, with existing nuclear power stations nearing the end of their service life and the replacement stuck in political limbo. And there are already plans to move all 28nm+ process to China so they could better utilize the resources in Taiwan for the more profitable products.

https://amp.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3131823/why-has-t...

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Re:TSMC looks to double down on U.S. chip factories as talks... by cm2187 on Saturday May 15, 2021 @07:08AM (#27164183)
I read the main problem at the moment for fabs in Taiwan is water shortages.

https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Tech/Semiconductors/TSMC-ta...

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Re:TSMC looks to double down on U.S. chip factories as talks... by Laforet on Saturday May 15, 2021 @09:02AM (#27164818)
TSMC reportedly uses over 50 million tonnes of water per year, which is a drop in the bucket compared to the annual 12 billion tonnes consumed by agriculture.

https://highscope.ch.ntu.edu.tw/wordpress/?p=42837

In any case, the current drought is likely to ease at some point but the electricity problem is only going to get worse.

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Re:TSMC looks to double down on U.S. chip factories as talks... by thu2111 on Saturday May 15, 2021 @11:43AM (#27166217)
Are those numbers really comparable? Agriculture can use more or less any kind of water, can handle sporadic supply and is spread over a wide area. Fabs need very large quantities of highly purified water in very small high density locations and it's an industrial facility so can't handle interruptions well. It could easily be that there's a shortage of water affecting fabs whilst agriculture is fine.
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Re:TSMC looks to double down on U.S. chip factories as talks... by Laforet on Saturday May 15, 2021 @11:47PM (#27171043)
You are right that fabs require a much higher grade of water but the overall quantity is much less. Yet with farmers suffering the worst effect of the drought it is very difficult for TSMC to expand production without looking like the bad guy who profit at other people's expense. Notwithstanding the fact that the actual amount of water they use is not significant.

NYT has a pretty good piece of reporting about the situation:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2021/04/08/tech...

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Re:TSMC looks to double down on U.S. chip factories as talks... by tekknik on Sunday May 16, 2021 @09:45AM (#27173667)
The actual link instead of an AMP one (please stop using AMP)

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/08/technology/taiwan-drought...

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Re:TSMC looks to double down on U.S. chip factories as talks... by account42 on Monday May 17, 2021 @10:20AM (#27183716)
> the electricity problem is only going to get worse.

That's not a given at all - Taiwan could just build more nuclear power plants if they wanted.

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Re:TSMC looks to double down on U.S. chip factories as talks... by Laforet on Monday May 17, 2021 @06:20PM (#27189109)
Taiwan is geologically active and as a result there are few viable locations to build a nuclear power plant.

Ironically, the Taipei-Hsinchu metropolitan area is on very solid ground and would have been perfect for a nuclear power station if it weren't so heavily populated.

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Re:TSMC looks to double down on U.S. chip factories as talks... by account42 on Tuesday May 18, 2021 @09:22AM (#27194206)
Taiwan already has three nuclear power plants, one of which is being decommisioned. Construction on a fourth was started but halted due to politics.
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Re:TSMC looks to double down on U.S. chip factories as talks... by Laforet on Thursday May 20, 2021 @07:42PM (#27228851)
The new plant is fully constructed and permanently mothballed. They went as far as removing all fuel rods and shipped them back to the US manufacturer. Unless something drastic happens I don't think we will see it in operation ever.
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Re:TSMC looks to double down on U.S. chip factories as talks... by JohnJamesRambo on Saturday May 15, 2021 @08:47AM (#27164713)
“Better move to Arizona.”
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